Volksbanken Said to Sell Container Leasing Business to Fortress

Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Oesterreichische Volksbanken AG, the
lender partially nationalized by Austria, is close to a sale of
its container-leasing unit to Fortress Investment Group LLC,
according to two people with knowledge of the process.

Volksbanken may sell Immoconsult Asset Leasing GmbH, a
Vienna-based company that leases shipping containers, to
Fortress for less than $200 million, said one of the people, who
asked not to be identified because the process is private. The
transaction is expected to be completed in the next few weeks,
the person said.

Volksbanken is considering options for units it deems
“non-core,” including selling them or winding them down,
Walter Groeblinger, a company spokesman, said today by
telephone. Immoconsult is among those units, he said, declining
to elaborate. Gordon Runte, a spokesman for Fortress, a New
York-based private-equity firm, declined to comment.

Expanding global trade creates demand and shipping lines
are focusing investments on new vessels, pushing them to rely
more on leasing companies such as Fortress’s SeaCube Container
Leasing Ltd.for the containers they use. The Bloomberg U.S.
Container Leasing Index, which also includes CAI International
Inc., TAL International Group Inc. and Textainer Group Holdings
Ltd. has risen 25.3 percent this year, compared with an 11.8
percent rise of the S&P 500 Index.

Immoconsult owns and manages about 160,000 20-foot
equivalent units, or TEUs, of containers and is among the 15
biggest firms globally, according to its 2011 annual report.

Volksbanken has gotten three state bailouts since 2008
after the fivefold expansion of its balance sheet over a decade
unraveled. In the last rescue operation, Austria took a 43
percent stake. The lender already sold its real estate arm and
its eastern European business as it is cutting assets to focus
on central functions for the local banks that own a majority
stake in the Vienna-based company.